The shareholders of United Bulgarian Bank (UBB) approved a three-year public bond issue at an extraordinary general meeting on October 23, 2001. The bonds will be offered on the Bulgarian Stock Exchange and will carry a fixed annual coupon of 7,5%. The bond issue will have a total par value of BGN 15 M. The bonds will be offered at equal par and issue price of BGN 1,000. Three shareholders took part in the meeting, including a representative of the UBB majority owner, the National Bank of Greece. The meeting was not attended by an official representative of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which holds a 10% stake in the bank. “We are the first bank institution to issue such a volume of bonds,` Stilian Vatev, CEO of the bank said. UBB will invest in technological projects, among them a project for retail banking worth USD 13 M.